Blade's Fall Chapter Six

“I don’t understand.”

“You don’t understand what?” Loflan inquired.

“Why did they come back?”

“Who?”

“Our three guardsman.”

It had been nearly three weeks since he had found Elatha. Loflan had been so busy preparing the house for the impending winter and to make it comfortable for two women that her captors had not been foremost in his mind. Though he knew that would slowly change as time went on.

“I believe they were to travel farther into Sorsenia but decided to only go four days for whatever reason. They left her body on the side of the road where she would be found. I believe they knew the usual practice of us Sorsenians and so knew we would burn her body when she was found. They waited in town for news of her demise. When they got it, they left.”

“So you believe they were acting on orders from the Queen herself?” Maude said.

Loflan nodded. “Yes. They wouldn’t care where they dropped her otherwise. They would have just had their way with her and dropped her on the other side of the border.”

“Elatha’s vocal cords are healing well. She talks quite plainly now. I do not ask her about her past and she doesn’t offer me any information willingly. I believe I am ready to hear her side of the story. I want to know if she really is a theif though I would bet my life she is not…… I like her.” Maude confessed as she poured tea into three earthenware cups. “She does not give way to grief or complain. Well she only complains when I fuss over her. She does not say much though I know that by now she can. I am ready to know the truth.”

“I will be sure to listen in.” Loflan said and smiled.

Maude gave him a look. “You are coming too. It’s high time she got used to you.”

“Are you sure?”

Maude didn’t reply. She took the tray of tea into the bedroom.

Elatha was sitting up in the bed looking blankly out the window. She turned at their approach. Loflan saw the swelling had gone down considerably but her face was still a mass of bruises in varing shades of black, purple and yellow tinged with green. Her russet colored eyes locked on his and though her body did not move he saw the urge to recoil in her gaze. He did not stop but continued on to a stool in the shadows. Maude sat the tray down on the side table and served the tea.

“I thought it was high time we heard your side of the story, my dear. Are you feeling up to it?” Maude asked.

“My side of the story?” Elatha asked.

“Aye. Loflan here has had it from our three merry men that you have stolen important information from the South Escapian Queen.”

Elatha’s eyes went wide.

“Oh yes and they say they have been tracking you down to punish you for your crimes. The problem with their story is that you were found carrying no items that would lend credit to their claims. Could perhaps this information be in your head?”

Elatha stared at Maude stunned for a moment before answering her charges. “I have no information. I was kidnapped by those men and…..” she trailed off. “….left to die.”

“But why? Why would three of the Queen’s personal guards take the trouble of dropping you a four day’s journey from the capital in Sorsenia? Why would the Queen want no one to know of your fate?”

Elatha looked away. “Her son and I…..” she answered quietly.

“Ah I see. So you did make off with something. The heart of the Prince. Yes, yes that would do it nicely.”

“I do not understand it. If I had not been there when she told the men to take me I would not have believed she would do this to me! She used to be so kind and so loving.”

“And now?” Maude proded.

“Now she is crewl and a tyrant to her people. Since the King died almost two years ago Palasia is a different place all together.”

Maude and Loflan exchanged a curious a look.

“I believe this is the perfect time for you to tell us more about yourself. Do not fear that we disbelieve you because we do not. And take your time dear, we have no other place to be.”

Elatha sat up a little straighter and ran her fingers through ther hair in a nervous way. When her fingers only ran through an inch of hair and no more. Elatha’s face changed into a pained expression. Her russet eyes began to water and Loflan thought for a moment she might cry. Instead she gathered herself together and began to speak.
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“My father was the royal physician. The royal physician in South Escapia is treated with a certain amount of trust and respect though our station in society is only slightly above that of the commoners. My Mother fancied herself much higher than that and so our house, furnishings and lifestyle reflected this. From a young age I was put to work as an apprentice chandler in my Aunt and Uncle’s shop so that I might earn a little money for the upkeep of our façade.
One of the many perks of being the royal physician was that we were invited to many balls, teas and other outings. It was always good to have the physician in attendance in case of accidents. The teas and garden parties were the only events my mother could bring me to until I came of age. She did not start bringing me until she was sure I would be deemed 'pretty'.
My father did not join us at these parties as they were for the ladies only and my mother was invited as a courtesy. I never understood the enchantment my mother felt in going to these parties. We were treated civilly but not kindly. The majority of the ladies pretended we were not there. The Queen was the only lady in attendance that was truly kind. She always listened to what my Mother had to say, silly or not, and seemed genuinely interested in our health and happiness.

When we returned home after these visits my mother was always inundated with letters and calls. All the neighborhood ladies would come for fresh gossip. They would talk endlessly of what so and so wore and who was betroved to who.

I had always heard growing up that there was a Prince. Only going to ladies’ parties I never saw him. He was not allowed to go into town often and I never happened to be there the same time as he. Not that I cared. I had too much work to do to be curious. So my first view of him was at my first ball at age seventeen. My mother dressed me in the finest dress we could possibly afford and spent a deal of time on my hair and face powdering. She was so proud of my coming out she never noticed that the women only glanced at me with scorn and the men only with interest long enough to discern my connections, or lack of them. I was asked to dance several times. A man of any station my ask a lady of any station to dance. To court her is another matter.
As I have said before I got little enjoyment from high society so I escaped into the garden at the first opportunity. I walked the hedges and flowering plants by the lantern light when a flicker of metal caught my eye behind a large hedge. I peered behind it and saw a long bench under a tall black alder. I snuck behind the hedge and sat down. I had only been there sitting a few minutes when I heard a rustling. I sat up straighter and peered into the darkness. A shape swiftly slipped onto the bench beside me from behind the tree. The figure started upon noticing me and exclaimed.

“Who are you that have found my hiding place?” a young male voice asked me out of the darkness.

“I am Elatha Spark, sir.”

“The good doctor’s daughter I believe?”

“Yes, sir.”

“No need to call me sir.” He said waving a hand for emphasis. I could not see his face, only his shape in the darkness. “So are you hiding too?”

I smiled. “In a sense.”

“Might I ask who from?”

“My Mother.”

“And so we already have two things in common!” The boy exclaimed. “I too am hiding from my Mother! To hide from your mother at such an event as this could mean only one thing. She is trying to marry you off to someone?”

“Anyone.” I replied with a slight groan in my voice.

“This is amazing! Here I thought this ball was the dullest one yet. But now I have stumbled onto a kindred spirit.”

I laughed a little at this. “If this is not your first ball then you must be older than I. This is my first.”

“Indeed though not by much. I am eighteen next Saturday.”

Something about that statement triggered something in my head but I couldn’t grasp what it might be.

The boy and I talked for as long as we possibly could before we knew we had to rejoin the party or be missed. We talked books mostly. Of dragons and castles and damsels in distress. He told me it was his life’s dream to rescue a fair maiden from a tower. He made me laugh and the more I laughed the more silly he became in an attept to make me laugh again.

“We must leave at separate times my lady.” He told me. “You shall go first. My Mother is used to me disappearing. I will emerge in five minutes more.”

I agreed and stood to go.

“Are you to go with your family to the Rambling's picnic this Saturday?” He asked.

“Yes I believe so. It is in honor of Prince Haylan’s birthday……” I said trailing off.

“Then I will see you there.”

I left holding my breath as I went. Surely it was a coincidence their birthdays were the same? His name! I had never even asked his name.

I found my mother instantly and went to stand behind her. She was smiling and talking with a few other ladies. She smiled up at me but made no mention of my hour long disappearance.

My mind was racing, trying to convince myself I had not just sat on a secluded bench under and alder tree, at night with the Prince of Escapia when my eyes turned of their own accord to the archway leading in from the garden. There a boy stood. He was dressed in fine Palaisian blue, tailor cut to fit him perfectly. His blonde hair was long and tied in the back with a blue silk ribbon. His dark blue eyes were looking directly into mine. He smiled, turned and walked up to sit in a blue velvet chair on the Queen’s right. She leaned down and kissed his cheek lovingly.

From that night on I looked forward to events at the castle a deal more than I had before. We met in our spot behind the hedge at every evening ball. On day time excursions he always treated me the same as the high born girls of our age that accompanied us. To say they hated me for it would be an understatement. When we were not dreaming of adventures he would sometimes ask me to dance. While the men took no notice, the ladies turned up their noses at us. I, having grown up with it didn’t much care but it gnawed on Haylan. He ranted and raved about it sometimes and I would laugh and tell him it didn’t matter. He swore when he was King he would do away with the social system and make all his people equal.

After two years of meetings in secret and his increasing attentions to me the Queen started to catch on. We were afraid she would be furious and separate us. Instead she seemed to treat me with even more kindness than before.


Everything seemed to be going wonderfully. For the first time in my short life I was happy. And then the blackness came.

The night before it struck was a ball. Haylan and I danced and laughed quite openly. The King and Queen looked on at us fondly and my mother and father were in raptures with the hope that they might have the Prince of Escapia as a Son in Law.

Underneath the black alder Haylan talked passionately of what he planned to do once he was King.

"My first act of rebelling against the social system will be to marry a girl of common birth.” He told me.

“Indeed!” I exclaimed. “And do you have a common lady in mind or will any old handmaiden do?” I asked jokingly though my heart thudded in my chest.

He mimicked thinking very hard before he answered. “I believe a Doctor’s daughter would be just the thing.” He said sitting closer to me and taking my hands in his. “But wait. You are the daughter of a doctor, are you not?”

I nodded slowly. My heart’s beating was deafening. His blue eyes seemed to burn into mine as he asked. “What do you think? Would you turn away from everyone’s perception of being a common girl and consent to become my uncommon wife?” He did not wait for my answer before he dropped to his knee in the dirt before me and gave me reason after reason why I should say yes. That he would provide for me and do anything for me. He needed have troubled himself because my answer was yes.

Later that night I left the ball with such a light heart and aura of happiness that it was a wonder I didn’t float home. That was all to change a few hours later when a rider rode up to our house and knocked furiously on our door. The King was violently ill and father must go to him at once. The rider only allowed my father to grab some impliments of his trade and jars of medicines before whisking him away in his nightdress and stockings.

Mother and I were so worried we stayed up all the night awaiting his return. It was well past daybreak when he returned home with the news that the King had perished of this new and strange illness. Father could not stay and rest as others in the castle were sick and dying of this 'blackness' as it would later be called. The next few weeks were a blurr of sickness and death in the castle and all throughout Palasia. Once the King was buried the Queen locked herself in her rooms and would let no one in, not even Haylan.

My mother was the first to die of the blackness. My father stopped making visits once she died. He sent me to my Aunts and Uncles and within a week of my move my father succumbed to the blackness as well.

The blackness stopped as suddenly as it had begun. After two months one third of Palasia’s population were dead. The Queen reemerged and was forever changed. Her face was now hard and her once sweet voice was now harsh. The first thing she did was stop all parties and balls. The second thing she did was send her son to Langley. Almost as far away from Palasia as she could and still be in South Escapia. Langley, a region of Bransford was at that time at war with the region of Broadmore. For the next two years Haylan was trained in Langley and sent to fight a war he knew nothing about. Word of him still came to Palasia and we learned he became a decorated and ruthless Captain that insisted to rise the ranks with his skill and not his title. I was very proud of him but also very scared. I could not reason how crewl the Queen had become towards her son and her people that she had once loved so dearly.

She left me completely alone to work in the chandler’s shop with my Aunt and Uncle until Haylan came back from war. He sent a note the evening of his arrival asking me to meet him at our usual place the late next evening.

When I arrived he grabbed me and held me for a very long time breathing deeply.

“I haven’t much time. The guards will notice I am gone soon so I must be quicker than I want to be. I believe my Mother sent me away with the hope I would die in the war.”

I gasped but he went on. “She is so unlike herself, Elatha. All she cares for now is money and power. She is working to implement a new tax on all of South Escapia that would have them give a large portion of what they make or have to her. No one is to own their own land unless they pay the high tax she puts upon it. Those that can not afford the new tax will be placed in ‘colonies’ where they labor until their debt is paid. I try to talk to her but she has no time for me but a short word here or there. I must do what I can here to delay this tax and the formation of these colonies.”

He looked at me pleadingly now. “I fought hard to come home. To find out why my mother sent me away when I needed her the most and to marry the woman I love. It seems as though I will not know either. My mother told me today that she had betroved me to a woman, seven years my senior and very weathy in the Ukiane province. I told her I would not marry her and that I was already betroved to you. She yelled at me Elatha. She threw things at me and told me I would marry that person and that I should never see you again or face dire consequences.”

I was in shock. It was so much to process. To know the Queen for so long as a kind and loving motherly lady and to hear of her now was too much for my brain to process.

“I fear this must be our last meeting for sometime, maybe forever. I will not marry that person no matter what my mother may threaten me with. You, you must try to forget me. Marry someone else and live a good life.”

“I could never!” I protested.

We embraced then and with one last earnest look, he was gone.

The next morning I was escorted by three men to the castle to have an audience with the Queen. I am not sure if she had somehow discovered our meeting or if she had planned this beforehand. She met me in a small room just inside the castle. She looked so different. All of her soft lines now seemed hard. Her white hair was worn like a maine, wild around her face and faceted with glittering diamonds. Her gown was inexpressibly fine with blue saffaires woven into intricate designs on dark blue silk. Her fingers were studded with rings where before she had had only two. Her hard expression did not change as I entered the room and curtsied.

She looked me up and down and addressed the three men who had led me there.

“Take her a full journey north and make sure she is found and disposed of in the usual way.” She looked at me then and smiled a small, terrifying smile. “My son fancies he is in love with you though I do not see his inducement. But never fear. I will teach him what happens when he defies me. I will teach them all.” She jerked her head and one of the men put a cloth over my mouth. I did not even get the chance to struggle before darkness claimed me.

When I awoke I was in the back of a cart being pulled by horses. My body told me I had already been violated while I lay unconscious and I am thankful for that. As you can see they took turns beating me and devising new ways to shame me. I screamed until nothing more would come from my throat but no one came. I have no idea how no one heard me but no one did. There were several times I thought I were dying and was disappointed when I next awoke. I remember nothing of being found. I only remember waking up here in this bed.

I have not said it before but I do thank you for saving me. Saving me from those men. Saving me from death."


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